| Women’s Water Polo |
|---|
| Fresno State — 8 |
| UCLA — 14 |
As if winter quarter finals season wasn’t enough, how does stacking three games in four days, all against ranked opponents, sound on top of academic demands?
For No. 2 UCLA women’s water polo (15-2, 3-1 MPSF), it sounded like three straight wins to comfortably enter the final stretch of the regular season.
UCLA handled No. 12 Fresno State (11-9, 2-1 Golden Coast) on Sunday afternoon at Spieker Aquatics Center by a score of 14-8, securing their third win over the Bulldogs this season.
Senior utility Anna Pearson fired in four goals on four shots, while redshirt senior attacker Emma Lineback converted all three of her shots to notch her third hat trick of the season, all coming in the three game homestand.
On Lineback’s huge weekend, head coach Jason Falitz said, “She’s one of the top left hands in the country, if not the top…when her shot’s there, she’s not afraid to take it and she’s gonna step up.”
After losing their second game 10-9 to No. 1 Stanford last weekend, the Bruins righted the ship with wins over No. 14 Princeton and No. 18 San Jose State leading up to Sunday. Falitz added, “They could’ve felt sorry for themselves after last weekend, and they didn’t. I think they realized how much better we need to get, and they embraced that during the week.”
The Bruins started off hot, scoring on their first three shot attempts and earning a 4-0 lead within the first six minutes of play. UCLA continued to pad the lead courtesy of their seniors, with two goals each from attacker Taylor Smith, center Bia Mantellato and utility Genoa Rossi.
Despite All-American junior goalkeeper Lauren Steele being unable to play over the weekend, secondary junior goalkeeper Joey Niz stepped in to maintain the standard throughout the three wins.
Niz, who made six saves on Sunday, has the full support and confidence of her team, illustrated by Rossi saying, “I trust Joey and Lauren equally. I know Joey has every girl’s back on this team…we can count on her when something like this happens to Lauren.”
With only four games remaining before the postseason, the team is focused on the final stretch in both school and athletics. On how everyone manages in such a busy time, Lineback said, “You have all these buckets, and right now it’s finals and it’s the season. We’re approaching the end of season so that kind of takes priority, and I think everyone’s doing a good job of balancing that.”
Before their next game on Saturday, March 21 at home against Harvard, Lineback emphasized the value of not overthinking and keeping things simple.
“It’s a simple game at the end of the day. We don’t need to do anything super fancy. We just need to play our way.”
